Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The real master of history has entered a new field, the field of art, and done so to begin a new era.
—Rhetoric of Revolution: Communication, Culture, and Thought,
a required Shiguan reader
Brach took two long steps into Rats Castle, allowing a retinue of two attendant thanatists and two vestiges to file in behind him, blocking the entrance.
The denizens of Mick’s little supper house and pop shop all turned in their seats to face him, some calling out his name, others pumping fists as if welcoming a conquering hero.
Mick’s gregarious, yellow-toothed grin got even wider.
Brach waved once, then tamped the air with his hands, signaling for his adoring fans to ease back on the adulation.
“Master Brach, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Mick called from behind his table.
“I’ve come to welcome our newest visitor to the Strata.” Brach smiled. “Mr. Solomon, we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
I remembered the guy Mick had whispered to when we were introduced, and shot Mick a glare. “Yes, quite the coincidence.”
“Oh, fresh fish,” said Mick, hobbling from behind his table, “I already told you you’re a marked man. A’course I put a runner on you as soon as I knew you from Adam. You’re a walking reward.”
Cassius inclined his head toward Mick. “It does not speak well of our friendship, however, nor of your broker’s oath.”
Mick cocked an eye at the centurion. “One of the few regrets this old cheater may ever have. But I’ll offer a dozen Hail Marys for it the next time I find a pew.”
Brach chuckled. “Let’s make a quick accounting, shall we, Mr. Solomon, of your diligence, since last we met, to honor our mutual friend.” He pointed at the lantern in my hands. “You’ve managed to secure some secondhand catalysts, I see. Progress, of a sort.”
I lowered the lantern. “And I signed the transfer of ownership on the Iron Horse that Henry left me in his will, since that seems to have been the object of your concern in visiting him at the morgue.”
The rats in the Castle muttered, a few scooting their chairs back. Cassius whispered, “It is unwise to provoke him, Jack. Especially here.”
Brach strolled into the center of the room, sniffing at the stench of pork stew and sour dishrags. “Topside dealings are of no interest to me, Mr. Solomon. You, on the other hand, seem to have taken a keen interest in the dealings of our world below.”
“Uh, Mr. Brach, sir,” said Mick, “before things get . . . messy, wasn’t there a bounty—”
“We’re all men of good will, Uncle,” said Brach.
“Have a seat and we’ll get you paid soon enough.
” Then he continued his stroll, rat eyes following him like front-row fans do Jagger on a stage walk.
“Sir Bazalgette told me of your interest in our repurposing of his sewage systems. Sir Swan likewise had much to say about your interest in Tin Pan Alley as well as your rejection of our offer to help you avoid your trial.”
“If I’m guilty of anything,” I said, eyeing the rear hall, “it’s trying to do the very thing you keep asking me to do—protect the Iron Horse.”
Brach waved a dismissive hand. “Please don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Solomon. You and your friends’ dismissal of a few of our vestiges, or even engaging in open combat against members of Shiguan leadership, these are hardly more than Henry and I did on more occasions than I can count.”
“Because you were such good friends,” I said.
“Jack,” whispered Cassius again, “more bees with honey than vinegar.” It was just my default talk-back when I thought hands were about to get thrown. “Sorry,” I whispered back, then repeated louder to
Brach, “Sorry.”
Brach waved that off, too. “I speak of when Henry and I were young at our craft and striving to understand our new reality. It’s as I’ve said, we did not always agree. I like to think, however, that on matters of utmost importance, we were of the same mind.”
Mick settled himself again at his table. “I told him no, Master Brach.
No Orcus thread. You heard me say it.”
Brach stopped strolling. “New as you are, Mr. Solomon, you may not be aware that it is practically illegal to even utter the words ‘Orcus thread’ in the Strata.”
“Against some kind of law?” I’d only been through the massive book of Precedent once—maybe I’d missed it.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Brach. “Orcus thread is a powerful catalyst whose primary purpose is, in fact, a violation of Precedent Law. But we seldom even use its name out of reverence for its origin. We don’t wish to sully it with idle banter, and certainly not as a transactional matter in a place like this.
Though, a finer bunch of cutthroats and housebreakers you won’t find in all the Strata. ”
The rats burst out laughing and drank a few toasts to themselves. “You’re here to arrest me, then?” I fought the urge to put my hand on my khopesh. Civil talk, the way I knew it, was a disarming tactic before the worst of street fights.
Brach laughed. “How many times must I tell you that I’m an ally?
My guess is that I’ve been ill-used in the mouths of your closest advisors.
But ask anyone here if I’m the monster that topside propagandists would make of me.
No, despite whatever else you may believe or have been told, I’m on your side, Mr. Solomon. ”
“Then we are free to leave,” Cassius said, taking a step toward the door. Brach raised a finger, stopping Cassius in his tracks. “I do need to ask, however, as a matter of Strata safety and concern, why you’re pursuing one of the most powerful and most illegal catalysts known to thanaturgy.”
We both knew the answer. But such an admission, given that it was a violation of Precedent Law, would look bad at my trial, and I figured that’s why he wanted to hear me say it.
“First, please tell your friends Bazalgette and Swan no hard feelings. Could be I didn’t understand what was going on and got a bit zealous.
But where I’m from, you tend to hit first and ask forgiveness later. ”
“That is a terrible ethos,” Cassius whispered.
“Second, I’m still new to all this.” I was hoping the noob card would work. “I’ve got a thousand terms in my head, and I can’t keep any of them straight.” Quite the contrary, thanks to my hum-reading trick. “So, it’s like I said, I’m just trying to learn and do what our mutual friend asked of me.”
“That, on the other hand, was clever,” Cassius muttered.
Brach looked from me to Cassius and back. “Ignorantia juris non excusat, Mr. Solomon.”
I shook my head.
Cassius placed a hand on his sword pommel. “It means ‘ignorance of the law excuses no one.’ ”
Mick knocked his table, his fist like a gavel. “Hear hear, friends, you’ve got to know the law as good as a counselor so’s ya know how to break it.” Then he laughed his buzzsaw laugh, and all of Rats Castle joined him. Brach, too.
When it quieted back down, I admitted, “Well, maybe if I’m honest, there is a little anger in my heart these past few days,” then hummed a line from Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law.”
Brach immediately hummed a line from Judas Priest’s “United,” which was next-level metal chess—the guy really did know his music—and said, “Between friends there is no need of justice.”
“You quote Aristotle,” Cassius observed.
By that point, I didn’t know why I was surprised, but I shot Cassius a look all the same. He shrugged. “Centuries ago, I was bound to Sir Francis Bacon. He required his vestiges to read philosophical texts for scheduled debates.”
I turned back to Brach. “You’ve made yourself clear. No pursuit of illegal catalysts. I appreciate the heads-up, too.”
“I don’t just want your compliance, Mr. Solomon.” Brach crossed the rest of Rats Castle, stepping through the tailor’s blood on the floor. A mere foot from me, he stopped. “I want your friendship. Same as I had with Henry.”
Made me sick to hear, and I had nothing for it.
“You don’t know what you’re seeing in the Strata,” he added. “But I can show you. Teach you. Make sense of the strangeness and wonder that confounds you. I can do for you what I was trying to do for Henry.”
I locked eyes with him. “Which was what?”
“Heal a failing ward,” he said quietly. “And in so doing preserve both our worlds. I am as committed to the preservation of the Strata as you are the world above. Henry knew that. It’s why he came to me.
But it takes time. The arcanum is either old or no longer extant.
Besides which, in friendship, I would be a powerful ally at your trial. ”
“Friendship . . .”
Brach raised his chin. “If that feels a bridge too far just yet, then consider: ‘He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression, for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.’ ”
It sounded familiar, but both Cassius and I were stumped.
“That’s your country’s revolutionary man Thomas Paine.
” Brach pivoted and tracked back through the blood to his retinue, speaking over his shoulder.
“I invite you to think up on it until we speak again. But don’t dither, Mr. Solomon, because I can assure you, we in the Strata are not idle and your trial fast approaches.
” His crew parted, and he strode between them, disappearing out the door, his cronies in tow.
The gas lamps in Rats Castle guttered as if stroked by the wind, then settled. Rats began to chatter again, as though they’d just sighted a celebrity and now had stories to tell. Mick grumbled, “Where’s my damned reward.”
I turned to Cassius. “Why didn’t Brach just take us now?”
The centurion stared after the Shiguan leader.
“I believe he is earnest about wanting your friendship, though I might call it allegiance. But either way, he has already issued a trial summons. If he undermines the chancery’s opportunity to rule on the issues of that summons, he invites their scrutiny.
And there are still a few honorable chancellors in the chancery. ”
“Meaning not in his pocket.”
“I don’t know what this has to do with his pockets, but half of those you’ll face at trial will listen for the truth. The other half will not.”
Some things never changed. “Of course. Why would it be any different down here.”
“Do not,” Cassius said, tapping my chest, “make the mistake of believing it is the same in the Strata as it is in the world above, no matter how cynical or desperate you may feel.”
“Fair enough.” I turned back to Mick. “I’m still pissed that you sold me out.”
“Ah, fresh fish, you seem already to know that Brach is practically a king to these layabouts.” He spread his arms wide toward Rats Castle but meant, I think, the Strata.
“Elvis is dead,” I replied. “And I’m more a Thin Lizzy ‘Do Anything You Want To’ kind of guy. Check ’em out. You might like them—killer Irish rock band.”
Mick cocked an eyebrow, then fetched a black leather sling-satchel and a pair of gloves from his shelf, stuffed the gloves in the satchel, and tossed it on the table next to the lantern and bow. “To carry your catalysts.”
I slung it over my shoulder. “Heavier than it looks.”
“Weighted bottom,” said Mick. “So’s it don’t bounce while you’re running.”
I had no desire to know why a satchel should need to be designed for a running man.
“Thank you, Mick,” said Cassius. “I think it best we take our leave.” Mick leaned out over his table. “You forgettin’ somethin’?”
I’d given all my money to pay the tailor’s debt but patted my pockets anyway.
“Bit hasty in your rescue of the tailor, were ya?” said Mick. “Well, there’s other ways.” He pushed the ledger across the table. “What say these go on account? And I’ll call my marker if I’m ever in need of your particular talent.” He extended a fountain pen.
Cassius pulled me aside. “Jack, as bad as you need these catalysts, it is not advisable to put yourself in Mick’s debt.”
“He’s your friend.”
Cassius lowered his voice. “Yes, but he is not the kind of friend one relies on. Coin is the basest of currencies to Mick. He will call in favors to his marker that will cost you more than these catalysts are worth.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I once put my name in Mick’s book,” Cassius whispered. “And I have not forgiven myself for what I had to do to expunge my name from it. Do not do this, Jack. Let us find another way.”
I looked back at the ledger. The last thing I needed was to be out on more markers.
I knew what that meant in the world of topside gangs.
Down here . . . But I didn’t have time to find another rookery.
Things were already happening too fast. “I’ll have to take my chances.
” I stepped back to the table and looked Mick in the eye.
“You understand that I won’t break Precedent Law for you. ”
The pawnbroker handed me the fountain pen. “We here in the Rook of St. Giles are all of us saints, don’t ya know.” The rats all chuckled to themselves.
I signed my name, as behind me Cassius scoffed in his throat.
Mick placed his hands on his hips. “You come into the Seven Dials looking for illegal thread with a newborn lampman. I admire your grit, old friend. But you now know that such inquiries won’t go well for you if you keep nosing around.
Worse, in fact. Whatever good deed you think to do, put it away.
These aren’t times for drawing the wrong kind of attention. ”
“A fair warning,” said Cassius.
“But if we did want to keep nosing around,” I said, “you’d be the guy to tell us where, right?”
Mick chuckled. “You’re enough to make a stuffed bird laugh. You do realize that your little thread inquiry has put an even higher price on your head. And don’t you forget your mark in my book, which will come due soon enough.”
I stared around at the rats now eyeing us. “In for a penny . . .”
Mick shook his head. “I’m lousy with tailors. But not a one is gonna spit sideways to you if you’ve got no coin. Except maybe the lad what just limped on out of here before Brach come in. With him you might have earned a bit of goodwill.”